Albert Allemann

“ There are so many and so varied types among these later immigrants, and they are generally so much inferior to the native American population, that such a mixture would not be desirable. Herbert Spencer, Gobineau and others have pointed out that a mixture of races, very dissimilar, produces an inferior type of people. History bears out this view. The modern peoples that dwell in the Mediterranean basin present to-day a greater mixture of dissimilar races than any country on the globe, yet these regions, once the center of civilization, have certainly not produced a superior type of humanity. ”

“ Prostitution, the curse of large cities, is an enemy to marriage and tends to shorten and destroy life by transmitting and spreading venereal diseases. To all this we must add the attractions of city life, the chase after pleasure, the constant excitement, the nervous strain, which are all hostile to the vitality of families. ”

“ The cities are generally much larger and it is certain that the healthfulness of a city decreases as its size increases. It is true that sanitary measures are much more efficient than in former times, but it is also true that the destructive influences have grown in strength and new ones have appeared. The modern factory work, the poor housing conditions of the lower classes, tend to destroy life and weaken vitality. Race suicide is practised especially in the cities, while it is almost unknown among the country population. The struggle for existence is much severer in the cities ”

“ Slavic immigrants gradually repeopled the country. The same intense mixture of different races we find in Asia Minor and Syria, countries which send considerable numbers of immigrants to our shores. The least mixed of all these races are the Slavs of Russia. Yet this people has little in common with the race that settled America. The Russians are behind all other nations of Europe in social and political development. The mass of the people is ignorant, servile, superstitious, and, according to the opinion of a close observer, unfit for self-government. ”

“ Only the strongest, most energetic, most independent would undertake such a long, tedious and dangerous voyage. Ammon, in his most interesting study on the population of South-German cities, has shown that it is mostly the long-headed as the most energetic people who move from the rural districts to the cities. From this we may infer that the countries just mentioned sent principally this class of people across the ocean to mingle their blood with a kindred race. ”

“ Hailing from an entirely different region of Europe, they differ completely in their racial characteristics from the earlier immigration. Considering only the head form, some of these people would show no marked difference from the Anglo-Saxon or Teuton. The Sicilians, the Neapolitans, the Greeks, are more or less dolichocephalic. But some anthropologists lay entirely too much stress on the headform. It is evident that purity of race is of far greater importance than the shape of the head. But these Mediterranean countries have probably the most mixed population of any region on the globe. ”

“ They have undoubtedly greatly modified the character of the American people. The American is less stolid, less phlegmatic than the Englishman; he is quicker, more nervous; in vivacity he approaches the mercurial Frenchman. The character of the American people was much less affected by the people who came from middle and southern Germany, from Austria and Switzerland, because these peoples are themselves the product of a mixture between the Teutonic conquerors and the brachycephalic Alpine race and were thus a less heterogeneous element than the Celtic immigrants. ”

“ The best portion of the Italian people are the brachycephalic North-Italians. It is these sturdy and energetic people who have brought about Italian unity. By their thriftiness, intelligence and love of law and justice they form the backbone of the Italian monarchy. [10] If we cross the Adriatic we find on the Balkan peninsula a mixture of peoples, a Völkergemisch, made up of hardly less numerous elements than the population of Italy. The Slavic race forms here a predominating element among a population greatly mixed in other ways. ”

“ Thus while the earlier immigrants were of a reasonably homogeneous race, almost entirely of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic origin, just enough leavened with Celtic elements to quicken the phlegmatic pulse of that cold northern race, the majority of the immigrants that landed on our shores during the last quarter of a century, are quite dissimilar in their origin, language, customs and religion from the original settlers of the American Union. ”

“ The presence, in our large cities, of great numbers of these illiterate strangers, who neither understand nor sympathize with the political institutions of this country, is an impediment to municipal reform. So many of these heterogeneous people are now among us that it would be to the best interests of the country if congress, by suitable legislation, restricted immigration in such a manner as only to admit a small number and only the best elements of these heterogeneous races. ”

“ Another cause of the rapid extinction of the city population lies in the very mixture of so many races. There is a biological law that hybrids do not tend to reproduce their kind. The fecundity of such a mixed population is appreciably lower than that of a pure race. Lapouge found that in those regions of France where the brachycephalic Alpine race has preserved a comparative purity the birth rate is much higher than in the districts where the race is greatly mixed with Teutonic blood. ”

“ A modern sea voyage has not the dangers and terrors of earlier times. The better and best people stay now at home and only the lower classes emigrate. A mixture of these races with the earlier immigrants could not possibly produce a superior people, as we sometimes read in newspaper articles; it would vitiate and deteriorate the American race, and might prepare for this nation the fate of the Roman empire. ”

“ When that time comes the cities will have to rely exclusively on the country to replenish their dwindling population. Then the unceasing stream of people, which even now is constantly flowing from the country towards the towns, will reconquer the cities from that alien population which now holds them. ”

“ But during the last twenty-five years the number of immigrants from those regions has steadily decreased and has now sunk to very small numbers, while the immigration from Italy, Hungary, Greece and Russia has increased from year to year during the same period of time, and, of late years, has assumed truly enormous proportions. ”

“ It is hardly necessary to mention that families of an extremely healthy stock, and living under the most favorable conditions, are able to continue their existence a much longer time. The remarkable vitality of the British aristocracy is due to their athletic habits and to the fact that they spend the greater part of the year on their estates in the country. ”

“ They have been city dwellers from the time they left Palestine and began to overrun the countries of the earth. There can be no doubt that they are a very healthy race. In the struggle for existence, during the endless persecutions they had to undergo in every country and at all ages, only the strongest individuals survived. ”

“ The broad-headed Jews are not as pure a race as has commonly been supposed. They have been greatly mixed with the peoples among whom they lived. Especially is this true of the Russian and Polish Jews, who form such a large portion of the American immigrants. ”

“ We may assume, therefore, that the families that are now living in our large cities will, with few exceptions, die out in the course of two or three generations. It is only through the constant supply which the cities draw from the country that they are able to maintain and increase their population. ”

“ This mixed city population will not persist for any length of time. It is a generally recognized fact that city populations have much less vitality than the agricultural classes. But the surprisingly rapid rate at which families in the cities die out was not known until the remarkable observations of Hansen, Amnion and others were made public.
In modern times the causes which contribute to the rapid destruction of the city population are much more potent than in the past. ”

“ Large numbers of families came from the rural districts of northern and central Europe in quest of new homes, where they might enjoy greater freedom and have larger opportunities, and where they might be enabled to leave their children a goodly inheritance. Only a comparatively small portion of these people established themselves in the large cities ”

“ In the latter regions the birth rate is actually decreasing. [18]
It is evident that the lower classes, living under less favorable conditions than the well-to-do, are more subject to rapid extinction. But the higher classes are not exempt from this iron law. Various causes are mentioned for this fact. Marriages are contracted much later in life among the wealthy, and, as a rule, they have fewer children; the intellectual, life seems to be unfavorable to the fecundity of women. Race suicide is more common among the higher classes. ”

“ But these later immigrants are not agriculturally inclined; they would not settle in the country even if public lands were still accessible to them. They belong to the poorest classes, were mostly brought up in cities, and are not adapted to the cultivation of the soil. With the exception, perhaps, of the Poles an exceedingly small number of these later immigrants settle in the country. [15] The Russian Jew is a city dweller; the Greek and the Syrian stay in the cities; the Hungarian and the Slav take to mining; the Italians who do not follow mining or railroading prefer the large cities. ”

“ It is impossible, as we shall see, that a general intermixture throughout this mighty empire can take place, much less will the later immigrants be able to supplant the descendants of those sturdy pioneers who first settled the vast prairies and fertile valleys of this great republic. ”

“ Ammon holds that the aristocratic classes of the continent "have favorable prospects to perpetuate their family names only if they live on their estates and devote themselves to agriculture and the chase." ”

“ They are illiterate and differ in their religious beliefs, their languages and customs, from the Teutonic peoples. They are vivacious, restless, turbulent, and do not possess that respect for law and a well-regulated government which is inborn in the northern race. They bring rarely whole families with them. ”

“ About 70 per cent, of these immigrants are males. ↑ To withstand and counteract the steadily growing power of the yellow races the American nation requires all the strength and unity of a homogeneous people. ”

“ We may safely apply these results, which have been obtained for the German cities, to the great industrial and commercial centers of America, for conditions here are not more favorable to the maintenance of human life. ”